Black Baza x SDGs — #12 Responsible Production and Consumption
by the Black Baza Team
A bit like the symbol, we understand basic ‘responsibility’ to mean a cycle where neither production nor consumption leave the land and farmers worse off than they were before…
This sounds straightforward but let’s be honest, almost everything produced or consumed extracts more from the earth and people than it gives back in the process.
For us at Black Baza, nothing exemplifies this circularity more than packaging.
When we started, there was no earth-friendly packaging available in the market and we made do with paper pouches glued tightly to aluminium foil. They stood straight on a store shelf and you could reseal them using ziplocks.
By the way, you folks loved these pouches…and still do, based on the feedback we get from you about wanting to revert back! We won’t, sorry to disappoint! There is nothing “eco” about virgin kraft paper from freshly cut trees that cannot be recycled because of the plastic and aluminium it is stuck to.
Right now, we use the best available option but there are many disclaimers here.
It is still single use paper pouches. The biodegradeable bags take 24 months to degrade and there just isn’t enough data on what the soil is like afterwards (the ink cannot be great!). If you want your coffee ASAP (because coffee is one of those things one needs ASAP!), then we fly your parcel out to you.
Is glass better? Paper cello tape better? Paper bubble wrap? Corn starch bags?
Truthfully, maybe not. All of these are either still extractive (like glass and paper bubble wrap) or not the best for perishable foods like coffee.
At best, what Black Baza does is only offset our bad deeds in other ways — by reforesting coffee landscapes, enabling wildlife to flourish in these habitats, preventing the irreversible death of our soils.
We are also sending this message your way in case you might be keen to help us to do a life cycle assessment for our coffee. Carbon, water and waste wise.
Please email us at team@blackbazacoffee.com.
#UN #SDGs #2030 #climatechange #climateaction #coffeeandclimate #coffee #zerowaste
